He rose, opened the door and looked out into the corridor. She was not coming. Tired out, probably . . . sick of her job! How could he make the work more interesting, he wondered? How could he show her greater consideration?
He found it difficult not to drive Azalea. She encouraged him to overtax her strength. “If she’d only tell me when she’s had enough,” he thought guiltily. “But she won’t stop . . . won’t take advantage of the scheduled periods of rest!”
Dilling felt that he must put a stop to this sort of thing. For example, the girl must go out for lunch. He must see that she went. Anticipation of proposed tyranny sent an agreeable warmth over him. There were many Members who took their secretaries out to lunch . . . why should he not take Azalea?
A very sensible solution, so far as it went. He would see that she ate a proper meal in the middle of the day. He might take her at noon . . . if she would only come.
The sequence of his thoughts was shattered, and Dilling caught himself speculating upon a hitherto unconsidered problem—Azalea’s relations with other men. What were they? Had she any close friends? If so, which were the men, and if not, why? Had she ever been in love, and why had she not married?
Hastily, he discarded all the men he knew as unworthy of such a relationship, and then he fell to wondering how much she liked him. Was she capable of any depth of feeling, or was a sort of consistent cordiality, the expression of an intellectual glow that substituted for emotion?
But he made little headway. He found that the clear, cold reason that ate like an acid through the metal of ordinary barriers, was impotent to solve this subtler question . . . that he was slow and clumsy in considering the psychology of Romance.
Not that Dilling scented the least romantic element in his relationship with Azalea Deane. On the contrary! Never had he consciously admitted her femininity; never was he aware of the slightest exoteric appeal. Truly, did women say of him, “He’s a cold fish!” Azalea was, to him, a fine mind, a sort of disembodied intelligence, upon whose judgment he unconsciously leaned, and whose approbation he keenly desired.
As he drew the telephone towards him to put an end to his impatience, the door opened and she entered the room.